How to Better Manage Sales Teams

If you manage the behaviors, the results will take care of themselves.”                    - Gregg Wallick

Every person in your sales department, actually every person on the planet (that even includes Chuck Norris) has 168 hours in a week to be awesome.  In regards to managing your sales department, you can have set hours like a typical 40 hour work week, or you can empower them to work however they feel they can produce the most.  All of us would conclude that you don’t pay salespeople to sit behind a desk and organize their files, but to make your company MONEY, and lots of it. If I may, let me ask you a few questions: How are you measuring your sales people? Are you measuring their sales results? Or are you able to measure the behaviors that produce sales results?

I’d like to introduce an incredible sales philosophy developed by David Sandler, and that is called the “Trouble Line”.  On one side of the line is “Pay-Time” and the other “No Pay Time”. Salespeople have a choice to make every day. They can be either on “Pay-Time” or “No Pay-Time”.  Trouble occurs, however, when you spend too much time on the “No Pay-Time” side of the line.

First, let me define the difference between the two:

1. Pay-Time: These are activities that directly generate revenue.  Meetings with prospects, calls, emails, delivering proposals, following up on referrals for example.

                                 The “Trouble Line”                                   

2.  No Pay-Time: These activities support the staff’s ability to carry out pay time activities.  Product education, planning, preparing for meetings are examples.

From 9:00am to 5:00pm is the best time of day to perform “Pay-Time” activities.  “No Pay-Time” activities are very important too, however!  Reading, resting, planning, organizing among other things are great, but salespeople can hinder their performance if they believe that doing those activities 9-5 will be beneficial.

We at FollowUpPower subscribe to the philosophy, “If you manage the behaviors, the results will take care of themselves!”  Devoting your focus on the process vs. the results and having a measurable way to evaluate that progress is a better way to manage sales teams.  So, allocate about how many hours your money making behaviors take, and set a “Pay-Time” quota and track your productivity against target.  The behaviors will indicate progress which indicates achievement.  Manage yourself and your sales people in a way that avoids “busy-ness” and get down to “business“.  Learn what to track and how by clicking here.

I once heard a sales manager back in Texas tell me that he managed Chuck Norris in his first sales job.  During his training which included pay-time, Chuck was so motivated by the concept, he was chomping at the bit to sell.  In his first week selling self-defense packages door to door, Chuck performed 168 hours of “Pay-time”.   Needless to say, Chuck Norris left after 2 weeks and NO ONE has ever performed the same way again!  He made so much money that he decided to start his own dojo.  The legend has left his mark, now go and leave yours!

Here to encourage (and occasionally entertain)!

Ryan Groth

General Manager

FollowUpPower.net